The Mary Nelle McClendon Memorial Scholarship was established by family and friends in order to serve as a living legacy to her memory for many years to come. Through as endowment with the Wylie Education Foundation, hopefully the real beneficiaries will be students in the Wylie Independent School District that choose to pursue a career in the field of public education as classroom teachers.

For her family, this seemed to be a very appropriate way to honor two things she loved dearly; Wylie ISD and personnel. As the Human Resources Director for Wylie ISD, she spent countless hours leading the department and taking great pride in her responsibilities. Whether it be sewing job fair tablecloths from scratch because the ones she could buy just weren’t the right "Wylie maroon" or baking "pigs in a blanket" for job interview committees, she truly went the extra mile.

This endowment provides an opportunity to award a scholarship to a Senior student either from Wylie High School or Wylie East High School that chooses to enter a four-year institution and major in an educational degree. In some ways, this continues the work Mary Nelle McClendon enjoyed so much as she traveled to job fairs at colleges and universities and always knew when she had met just that "right" person to hire in Wylie ISD. What an honor it would be to have a recipient of the Mary Nelle McClendon Memorial Scholarship graduate from college and return to Wylie ISD to serve the future students of Wylie ISD for many years to come.

The McClendon family, which includes many extended family members known as friends, feels this establishment was a very fitting tribute and will be a productive way to impact the lives of others. We would encourage others to become involved in the Wylie Education Foundation by establishing endowments so that the students of Wylie ISD will have every opportunity to accomplish their goals in life. This provides resources to students but also allows future generations to have a direct connection to those that have gone before them. It is a great way to honor the past, while at the same time planning for the future. We know that the outstanding students that receive these scholarships in the future will be the ultimate "living legacies" that will go on and make immediate impacts in our public school classrooms.